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What happened?

There were chaotic scenes at Gatwick and Heathrow yesterday as people tried to make their way overseas for the long weekend and half-term school holiday.

All of BA's check-in and operational systems were affected by the issue, including the airline's customer service phonelines, app and rebooking functions.

The incident also had a knock-on effect on BA's operations around the world.

BA initially cancelled all flights before 6pm on Saturday but later announced that planes would be grounded for the rest of the day and warned passengers not to go to the airports.

BA chief executive Alex Cruz said he was "extremely sorry" for the "huge inconvenience" suffered by customers, especially families heading on half term holidays.

The glitch is believed to have been caused by a "power supply issue" and there is no evidence of a cyber attack, the airline said.

British Airways staff writing gate information on a white board at Heathrow Airport after a global IT outage

Who was affected?

Several travellers at Heathrow said they were not told their flights were cancelled until more than an hour after the airline put out a press statement announcing the decision.

Student Emily Wilson said: "We were told (it would be) about three hours for collecting bags, that all compensation will have to be done online, and that we are unable to rebook flights now because of the system being down."

At Gatwick, frustrated passengers could be seen surrounding BA staff at the check-in as they handed out letters which apologised for the cancellations and gave details about how to claim for hotels, local transport and refreshments.

Teacher Gemma Richardson, 30, who is 24 weeks pregnant, said "it was chaos" when she and her husband arrived at the airport with their two-year-old daughter.

"It seems that because it is a bank holiday weekend there is no spare flights. We are on standby but it is very unlikely we are going anywhere," she added.

Queues at British Airways check in desks at Heathrow Airport, as the airline "experienced a global system outage"

When will services resume?

Customers who saw their flights cancelled are being refunded or rebooked on to new services and other options are available for those who no longer want to fly.

However industry insiders fear it could take days for services to return to normal and clear the backlog of passengers.

Air industry consultant John Strickland said the disruption could "run into several days" and added: "There's a massive knock-on effect.

"Customers and from the airline's point of view - manpower, dealing with the backlog of aircraft out of position, parking spaces for the aircraft - it's a challenge and a choreographic nightmare."

Planes are out of position, adding to the delays

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What BA say

A BA spokesman said: "We are continuing to work hard to restore all of our IT systems and are aiming to operating a near normal schedule at Gatwick and the majority of services from Heathrow on Sunday.

"We are extremely sorry for the huge disruption caused to customers throughout Saturday and understand how frustrating their experiences will have been.

"We are refunding or rebooking customers who suffered cancellations on to new services as quickly as possible and have also introduced more flexible rebooking policies for anyone due to travel on Sunday and Monday who no longer wishes to fly to/from Heathrow or Gatwick.

"We would advise customers travelling across the Bank Holiday weekend to continue checking the status of their flight on our website, www.ba.com before coming to the airport."